Discussions

Some quotes on forced mass schooling:  
 
"We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes." - 1888 US Senate Committee Conclusion on Education  
 
"Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth." - John Dewey 1897  
 
"Schools are places in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." Dean of Stanford University, 1905, His disertation on Education.  
 
"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way." - Rockefeller Education Board  
 
 
All these minds and thoughts were pre-eminent during the creation of our institutionalized education in the US and in Canada at the turn of the century. If you disagree with them, time to re-evaluate how we educate our children. To find out more, check out John Taylor Gattos website: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/.